University of Copenhagen finds Nano-Thermite in WTC dust

[Aught3]

It's peer reviewed if the editor asks for it to be.
I'm not asserting that this article hasn't been I'm just asking if we are sure that it has.

 

[IBSpify]

Synystyr- Your ignoring the fact that even if you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that nanothermite was planted, that doesn't mean it's a government cover up. it's very possible that if it were the case that nanothermite was planted it was missed by the government, as they investigated the aftermath (it apparently took 7 years for this guy to find the evidence).

It also does not point to a government planting the nanothermite there, it's entirely plausible that the terrorists themselves planted the nanothermite to make sure that the job they got done

It is a gigantic leap in logic to go from "we found nanotermite" to "Government conspiracy to do.....I don't know exactly"

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Sigh people are playing around with the semantics of my posts and not the report.

I'm not. My points have all been regarding the possibility of an inaccurate, biased or faked report - something with precedence, especially in cases where personal bias plays a larger part (Turin Shroud.)

How strong is the trail of provenance for the samples taken, where were they taken from, how was it recorded, who recorded it . . .

 

[IBSpify]

If you go to the website it states that it is peer-reviewed, I think the word "Open" in the title refers to the fact that the articles are free to the public without any need for registration or money.

Everything that I'm finding out about the Bentham Science Open Chemical Physics journal, points to that it's peer review in name only, it would seem to be a vanity publication, where the peer review process often begins and ends with "did his check clear yet?"

Also note (and i don't actually hold this against them) thus far it would seem they only have 2 issues

 

[Aught3]

^Agreed.
It sounds more like a pyramid scheme than an reputable journal.
Not to mention that some of the authors have left their academic positions recently.

 

[nasher168]

So what about the planes themselves? Surely they were powerful enough to take down the towers. One thing I have noticed about the conspiracy theories is that they rarely actually talk about the planes themselves. There is no denying that two planes did indeed hit the towers. Who could the US government possibly get to fly planes into towers for them? Was Al Quaeda's high command working with the US secretly? I doubt it, they have lost a lot of power since 9/11.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

So what about the planes themselves? Surely they were powerful enough to take down the towers. One thing I have noticed about the conspiracy theories is that they rarely actually talk about the planes themselves. There is no denying that two planes did indeed hit the towers. Who could the US government possibly get to fly planes into towers for them? Was Al Quaeda's high command working with the US secretly? I doubt it, they have lost a lot of power since 9/11.

I've actually heard "hologram planes" before.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I'm not. My points have all been regarding the possibility of an inaccurate, biased or faked report - something with precedence, especially in cases where personal bias plays a larger part (Turin Shroud.)

How strong is the trail of provenance for the samples taken, where were they taken from, how was it recorded, who recorded it . . .

Maybe I started off on the wrong foot, but I think you're going about it the wrong way as well. The problem with conspiracy theories, ALL conspiracy theories, is that they aren't about facts at all. Therefore, attacking individual bits of potential facts is a waste of time IMO.

The real issue is the "narrative" of the conspiracy theory. That is where they start, and that is what needs to be broken through in order to get people to face reality. It all starts with the story that the conspiracy theory believer has embraced, in this case the idea that the WTC attacks were a more complicated plot than 19 lunatics flying planes into buildings. It is the same "There's NO WAY the official story is real" attitude that is embraced by creationists("There's NO WAY the universe came about by natural means!"), Erich von Däniken's bunch("There's NO WAY the Egyptians could have built the pyramids!"), or the anti-vaccine crowd ("There's NO WAY vaccines didn't make my kid autistic!").

With this mindset, all positive evidence no matter how shoddy and unsubstantiated is taken to be utterly and completely reliable. All negative evidence is seen as proof of the conspiracy. Either you agree with the conspiracy theorist, or you are either a member of the conspiracy or have been duped by them. In this case, the source is a confirmed (9-11 Truth) nutter organization who had already decided what they would find before they did any research at all.

Here's where we have some fun... let's look at the names on this paper on "nanothermite" and see what we find:
Niels Harrit: PhD in something (maybe), member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Jeffrey Farrer: PhD Materials Science and Engineering, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Steven Jones: PhD Physics, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Kevin R. Ryan: Fired from Underwriters Laboratories for spreading lies about the company in relation to 9-11, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Frank Legge: PhD Chemistry, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Daniel Farnsworth: Student of Farrer and Jones

Gregg Roberts: BA PSYCHOLOGY, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

Bradley Larsen: MS Geology, member of CT group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

So. What do we see? A paper ginned up in the echo chamber of a conspiracy theory group, where the outcome had already been decided upon before any research was done. After all, they already believe that there is NO WAY the WTC towers went down without massive amounts of the exact thing they happened to find almost 8 years after the fact, and that no other investigators ever found.

Oh, yeah... the fact that no one else has found what they found is just proof that all the other investigations were part of the conspiracy.

 

[ebbixx]

Thermite is fairly simple to make.
Ask yourself
- what was the plane made of?

Fuselage: mostly aluminum.

- what was the building made of?

Girders = steel.

The plane flew into the building and started a fire which apparently was hot enough to melt metal - creating thermite. This is a much simpler explanation and I came up with it after 5 seconds of reading the OP. I hope no one is taking this conspiracy seriously.

Catalyzed by burning jet fuel.

Totally dude. Not that I'm not open to a good conspiracy theory, but I'd have to understand first how the combo above could not have possibly produced the reaction necessary to bring the fire to the levels of heat needed to compromise the integrity of the floors where the fires were burning. Add the prefix "nano" to anything and suddenly the public seems to imagine supertechnology... or maybe no lab interested in developing such a compound has had access to a test bed that involved such quantities of aluminum, steel and jet fuel and perhaps some other catalysts from the wealth of chemicals the towers contained?

 

[ebbixx]

So what about the planes themselves? Surely they were powerful enough to take down the towers. One thing I have noticed about the conspiracy theories is that they rarely actually talk about the planes themselves. There is no denying that two planes did indeed hit the towers. Who could the US government possibly get to fly planes into towers for them? Was Al Quaeda's high command working with the US secretly? I doubt it, they have lost a lot of power since 9/11.

You haven't watched enough conspiracy theory videos I'm guessing. There are all manner of claims that the planes on the tapes do not match the profile of the planes said to have been hijacked, that they were modified US transport jets, or that they were some kind of guided (unmanned) missiles, or planes rigged and flown by "wire." (I'm not supporting these claims, just saying what some of the ones are that I've seen repeated by some alleging an elaborate conspiracy).

It doesn't help, though, that U.S. history has several cases if inciting incidents leading to military action that turn out to have been based on some dubious events, some possibly staged by elements within the government.

Meaning, I'm not entirely dismissive of the possibility of conspiracy, after all, US intelligence sources tried repeatedly to bring attention to warning signs of the attack. Then again, signs of the Bush administration's incompetence and refusal to use longstanding practices regarding the handling of intelligence reporting and analysis are too many to summarize in a brief note like this.

But any conspiracy needs to meet some standard of proof to remain credible. I don't expect the dust will settle or there will be any strong consensus on the facts for at least another 40 years, assuming national security and state secrecy practices don't get even worse than they've been since the 1940s.

 

[Aught3]

Totally dude. Not that I'm not open to a good conspiracy theory, but I'd have to understand first how the combo above could not have possibly produced the reaction necessary to bring the fire to the levels of heat needed to compromise the integrity of the floors where the fires were burning.

The fire (and the plane crash) did compromise the structural integrity of the floors. All I was going off was the possible supply of aluminum from the plane and the possible supply of iron oxide from the building. A fire, building collapse, plus rapid cooling from the water poured on the ruble might have produced the necessary conditions for creating powdered thermite. As weird as that explanation is, it more parsimonious than the US government organising an attack on its own people.

Add the prefix "nano" to anything and suddenly the public seems to imagine supertechnology

All the nano prefix refers to is the fineness of the grain.

Looking in a bit more detail at the paper, journal, and authors I think it's become pointless speculating on their results. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the research was totally bogus, so I'll wait for a more reputable article before I'll accept that they found anything more than red paint chips.

 

[Finger]

Like Creationists, every single claim made by 9/11 truthers relies on incomplete, misunderstood, or completely made up evidence.

 

[Aught3]

^Nice vid
No thermite reaction products? De-bunked.

 

[Finger]

This is the habit of conspiracy theorists. They look at minute details instead of what should be staring them in the face.

Take for example, the collapse of the towers themselves. Conspiracy theorists love to point at little puffs of smoke or how long it took for the towers to fall. But they never bother to notice that the towers had initially started falling from the very point where the planes had hit (instead of bottom-down which is what would be the case if it was a controlled demolition.) The casual "truther" will usually ignore this and either fall back on the puffs of smoke or start bringing up Tower 7. But the hardcore ones begin immediately with the ridiculous rationalizations like, "The planes had missiles that fired just before they hit" or "the planes never hit the towers at all! All videos of the impact were doctored!" (seriously.) Its classic selective reasoning. They've assumed their conclusion before hand and will willfully ignore anything that doesn't support it.

 

[IBSpify]

the planes never hit the towers at all! All videos of the impact were doctored!

That's one of my favorites, because obviously the Government doctored everybody's cell phone video and pictures.

and if the planes never crashed into the buildings how do they reconcile the lives lost of the passengers of the planes

 

[Finger]

and if the planes never crashed into the buildings how do they reconcile the lives lost of the passengers of the planes

Either the Government executed them or they never existed in the first place. All the grieving family members are actors. Apparently, the Government has some pretty sweet Hollywood connections. How else could they have access to expert digital effects artists?

 

[Aught3]

Ugh, reminds me of the Argentine vuelos de la muerte; sends shivers up the spine.

 

[Aluman]

Niels Harrit has a PhD in Chemistry.

Unfortunately, its garbage for reasons already pointed out.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Maybe I started off on the wrong foot, but I think you're going about it the wrong way as well. The problem with conspiracy theories, ALL conspiracy theories, is that they aren't about facts at all. Therefore, attacking individual bits of potential facts is a waste of time IMO.

So. What do we see? A paper ginned up in the echo chamber of a conspiracy theory group, where the outcome had already been decided upon before any research was done. After all, they already believe that there is NO WAY the WTC towers went down without massive amounts of the exact thing they happened to find almost 8 years after the fact, and that no other investigators ever found.

Heh. Well, I'm taking the middle ground as far as I can, but I hadn't looked at the report properly. Similarities to STURP (the Shroud of Turin Research Project) become thicker and meatier. Practically everyone on their team believed in the authenticity of the shroud before they even did research, and McCrone - who produced two peer-reviewed pieces of damning evidence AGAINST it - was removed from the project shortly afterwards. There is definitely a bias, that much I smelt in the first place, but it grows stronger.

And as everyone pointed out, nanothermite - even IF created and planted by a human agency -doesn't prove any kind of government conspiracy. Sadly, the wording of Syn's original post betrays his bias as well. He's been waiting for this "evidence" for years.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Who could the US government possibly get to fly planes into towers for them? Was Al Quaeda's high command working with the US secretly? I doubt it, they have lost a lot of power since 9/11.

Somewhere in this world you can find someone to do ANYTHING. Wouldn't even have to be inspired by faith.